Overview of how Worth1000 v3.0 works

Worth1000 v3.0 (W3K) is more than just a site redesign. The underlying concept of how people compete, where they compete and what tools they can use have been reworked from the ground up. The biggest improvement is that instead of one large site separated into a few general sections, Worth1000 has been converted into a limitless series of completely separate and focused Arenas.

The best analogy would be if Walmart was converted into a shopping mall - you can still buy everything you need during a single trip, but now you would visit specific stores within the mall instead of having one huge endless store to walk through. The idea underlying W3K was to make a site more browsable and closer-knit. We wanted to make a place where people could feel they were a part of micro-communities surrounding specific topics interesting to them, yet still be a part of the larger community as a whole. And coming soon, I want to make a site where people could create their own arenas around any topic interesting to them.

NOTE: Custom arenas, gift bling and instant messaging will be released shortly

Concept Changes

Arenas

Worth1000 is now divided into arenas. Every arena is a self-contained area that revolves around a topic (i.e. Photography) and a skill level. So "Advanced Photography" and "Beginner Photography" would each be 2 separate arenas.

Every arena has its own contests, forums, hall of fame and more! Most important to note is that some arenas may have their own specific rules regarding voting and entering contests. Arenas can be both public and private. Best of all, we will soon be allowing anyone to create their own self-contained arena! You can join as many arenas as you like and even get a personalized
view that shows all the aggregated content from your arenas in one spot!

NOTE: Arenas each carry their own Tag with a 3-5 character code and unique color. You can use this tag as a shortcut URL to get to your favorite arenas (i.e. the Advanced Photography arena with the Tag of "FOTO" would be accessed at http://foto.worth1000.com)

Topics

A topic is an area of the site that aggregates content from many similar arenas into one single view. For example, the Advanced Photography and Beginner Photography arenas are both tagged with the topic of "Photography" and would therefore both have their content show up in the "Photography" topic. We even have an "All" topic that aggregates all public content into one view!

NOTE: Topics are generally indicated by carrying a hashtag symbol (#) in front of them.

Arena Admins

On the previous Worth1000 website an admin was in charge of the whole site. This role is changing slightly.

On the new Worth1000 website, an Arena Admin only has control over their specific arena(s). This means that an Arena Admin who is running the Advanced Multimedia arena can not make changes or moderate the Beginner Text arena (unless they are also Arena Admins there too).

An Arena Admin has full power within their arena, including the ability to create new Arena Admins and Arena Moderators.

NOTE: Many members of the Worth1000 admins on the previous site will become Arena Admins.

Arena Moderators

Arena Moderators are specialized Arena Admins that help out on specific tasks (and have limited powers related to those specific tasks). For example, an Arena Moderator might be in charge of helping edit forum threads or monitor voting or even curate entries into new collections.

Arena Admin Council

Council members are a group of nominated Arena Admins who help oversee the entire website as a whole. They are volunteers who help figure out the collective site community policies, mediate disagreements and ensure fairness and contest integrity throughout the entire Worth1000 website. They also are available to help manage arenas where the existing Arena Admins have requested assistance. The Council will be rotated in the future and new members picked via nominations.

NOTE: Many members of the Worth1000 admins on the previous site will transition to join the first Arena Admin Council.

Voting Karma

Voting Karma is someone's voting power within individual arenas. Karma can fluctuate up and down and largely depends on how someone is behaving. When someone votes well in contests their voting karma will rise. Voting karma is regulated separately within each arena, which means some arenas may set a limit on how much karma any user can have.

NOTE: Voting Karma is tracked separately per arena for each user.

Power Voters

Power Voters are normal users that have automatically powered up their voting karma in a specific arena through excellent voting. Once powered up, their Voting Karma is protected from decreasing and the restriction on votes being worth a max of 175 points each is lifted. Normal users votes are worth between 1-175 points depending on their karma. A Power Voter's vote is worth 350-500 points, depending on their karma.

NOTE: Many Worth1000 jurors on the previous site will be granted this status.

Additional Improvements in W3K

Easy URLs

All pages on Worth1000, including contests, profile pages and entries now have simple URLs. This is especially great for artists profile pages as their usernames are now used instead of a hard to remember user id!

Entry Formats

Contests can now support multiple media types of entries! Here's a list of the currently supported types:

Traditional Images (thumbnails generated)

Single image

Multiple image (new!)

Multimedia (no thumbnails generated)

Animated gifs

Flash swfs

Text block

Video embeds (YouTube and Vimeo) (new!)

Audio mp3's (new!)

NOTE: We will be adding additional media types as we grow the number of contest sizes. You can find most experimental new media types in Multimedia arenas.

Aviary Integration

Worth1000 is now completely integrated using Aviary.com'sfree online design tools. You can now launch any of the design tools from the Tools page and even visually critique or open image entries within Aviary directly from the entry itself.

Aviary's editors all include a built-in Creative Commons search for content via Flickr (and conveniently tracks all used sources for you).

The following Aviary tools have been embedded in Worth1000:

Advanced Image Editor (Phoenix) - This layer based image editor is powerful and a great alternative to traditional desktop software like Adobe Photoshop and the GIMP.

Simple Image Editor (Falcon) - This simple editor is lightning quick to load and has a very simple interface. It is excellent for marking up images visually or doing basic cropping / rotating / resizing.

Vector Editor (Raven) - This vector editor allows you to convert bitmap pictures to vector and draw your own graphics from scratch. It is perfect for logos and specialized clipart.

Effects Editor (Peacock) - This editor allows you to create mind blowing filter effects that can be reused in the image editor (or even stand-alone).

Screen Capture (Talon) - This web app (also available as an even more powerful Firefox extension) can be used to capture any web page (and edit it in Falcon)

Entry File Sizes

A number of changes have been made to what kinds of entries can be uploaded and how they can be displayed.

Any size image can now be uploaded.

The default thumbnail size has been raised to 625 pixels in width.

Additional thumbnail sizes for image entries are now available, including a large 1024 pixel wide view. Hover over any entry and click Zoom to see it (requires an account).

Entries can now be embedded and shared more easily.

Voting Scale

Every arena uses a specific voting scale which is a guide on how members are supposed to apply their votes. This helps keep the contests fair and balanced as it allows everyone to understand what criteria should be taken into account. Before voting, check the voting scale of the arena you are voting in.

As most people don't read manuals (hey, congratulations on being the exception to that rule!), we generally weight the voting of inexperienced voters less against more experienced voters who have learned to use the voting scale properly. We use a Voting Karma to track how experienced a voter is.

Forums

The forums are now based on arenas and tags. Everything filters the same way that contests do. For example, in the ALL topic, you will see all public forum threads (and private ones you have permission to see). In the Photography topic, you will see all public forum threads from arenas in the Photography topic. And within a specific arena, you will see only threads from inside that specific arena.

The new Worth1000 forums have 2 specialized features:

You can now "Like" good, helpful comments. People with lots of helpful comments will now be tracked in Hall of Fame.

You can now reply inline to other users. This will help people track all replies to a specific comment.

Unlike the previous Worth1000 forums, the new forums use tagging instead of a single thread icon. This means that you can tag threads with multiple terms and your thread will show up when filters against any of those terms.

Bling & Trophies!

Users can now receive an unlimited amount of trophies and user-to-user gifted awards ("bling") on their trophy mantles. We'll be maintaining two separate mantles to separate won trophies and user awarded bling. We'll even be adding a way for you to customize your own designs to add to our Bling Store!

Member Directory

You can now search for all Worth1000 members using our alphabetized member directory. This directory can also be used within specific arenas to view the subscriber list to that specifc

Media Storage

Personal media storage can now be found on your Tools page under the Aviary tools. You can now upload multiple image files at once.

Private Collections

Users can now curate and collect their favorite entries as they browse all areas of Worth1000 into private collections. By default everyone has a "Favorites" collection, but they can easily add as many new collection types as they like. All private collections can be accessed and shared via artists' profile pages.

Arena Collections

Arena Admins and Arena Moderators can create unlimited Arena specific collections that appear under the Galleries section of their Arena. This is ideal for arena specific "Pictures of the Day" type galleries. Only Arena Admins and Arena Moderators can add to these collections.

NOTE: The equivalent of Jury Stars will now be handled by this collections system. Anytime a users' entry is collected by an Arena Admin or Arena Moderator it will be reflected on their statistics and on their entry page.

Slide Shows

You can now view all entries in a contest, gallery or collection in slideshow format. You even have different slideshow modes to choose from!

Personal Discussion Inbox

Your inbox will now behave more like a collection of personal forum threads instead of individual emails. You are also able to include multiple recipients when starting a new private discussion.

Artist Profiles

All users now have an upgraded profile section that can be accessed via their new easy URL. Different profile pages include a profile overview, a stats section, an entry gallery overview and a personal collections overview.

NOTE: User's profiles can be accessed by going to: http://www.worth1000.com/artists/[artist_username]